Fisher, Mary (1623-1698), was an early Quaker missionary from England . She traveled to North America and then to what is now the country of Turkey to spread her faith. The Quakers also are known as the Religious Society of Friends.
Fisher became part of the Quaker religious movement in the early 1650’s. At that time, she was working as a servant near York , England. Fisher began to spread the Quaker message in public. She was arrested in 1652 and spent 16 months in York Castle prison. This was the first of several times that Fisher was imprisoned for expressing her religious beliefs in public places of worship. In late 1653, Fisher traveled to Cambridge University with Elizabeth Williams, another Quaker. There, they angered students by entering into arguments with them about religion. Authorities had Fisher and Williams whipped in public for their actions. Accounts of the women’s suffering inspired similar confrontations at Cambridge and Oxford universities in the following years.
In 1655, Fisher traveled to the Caribbean island of Barbados , then an English colony, with fellow Quaker Ann Austin . In Barbados, the women preached the Quaker message. They then set out to preach as Quaker missionaries in New England . They arrived in the city of Boston , in Massachusetts Bay Colony , in 1656. The colony was governed by English Puritans , religious reformers originally from the Church of England. The Puritans considered Fisher and Austin’s ideas to be dangerous to their own way of life. They imprisoned the women under harsh conditions and examined them for signs of witchcraft . After five weeks, they deported them to Barbados. Fisher and Austin spent several months in Barbados as missionaries, then returned to England.
In the late 1650’s, Fisher joined a group of Quaker ministers who set out for what is now Turkey. They planned to meet with Sultan Mehmed IV. At the time, Turkey was part of the Ottoman Empire , which followed the religion of Islam . An English official at Smyrna (now Izmir, Turkey) put the group on a ship back to Europe. After a storm forced the ship ashore, Fisher continued on foot to Turkey. She finally arrived in Adrianople (now Edirne ) and went to Mehmed’s encampment. The sultan received her with a level of ceremony usually reserved for ambassadors. After returning to England, Fisher observed that the Ottomans had treated her with more respect than other Christians had treated her.
In 1662, Fisher married William Bayly, a sea captain and a minister among Friends. The couple raised three children. Bayly died at sea in 1675. In 1678, Fisher married John Cross, another Quaker. The couple spent their final years in what is now the state of South Carolina in the southeastern United States, where Fisher died in 1698.
